Blocked
by bj
Summary: I will say only the bare facts. There's nothing he needs to know. Nothing he should know. An Annie Wright story.


Disclaimer: I take all the blame for Annie Wright, but none for the rest of them. Oh, no, you're not laying it on me. If you want to pay for this, for one thing, you're a fool, and for another, pay Aaron Sorkin, NBC, etc. Enjoy, if nothing else.  
Author's note: To read all of the Annie Wright series without looking at my author profile, go to http://wwww.angelfire.com/bc2/allcanadiangirl/westwing.html. The site also has my other West Wing fanfic on it, and my X-Files trilogy on another page.  
  
  
Blocked  
By BJ Garrett  
  
It is evening. Almost night. I think it may be a good night, considering the mitigating factors of the last approximately twenty-four hours. Give or take a crying jag.  
  
"Annie?"  
  
"Hi, Sam." Since I've decided to put a brave foot forward, I smile at him as he enters my office.  
  
His eyes are glued to the floor, his hands are shoved in his pockets. He is no longer wearing a tie. Smudged glasses rest on his nose. It's nearly nine-thirty. I'd like to ask why he's still here, but I know the answer and I don't want to hear it.  
  
"Annie, I feel old."  
  
Not what I expected to hear. "Why?" I ask gently, coaxingly. I took psych; I know what I'm doing.  
  
He slouches in the hard plastic chair I recruited to work in my office. He stares at the back of the photo of my mother I carefully placed on the corner of my desk at two o'clock this afternoon. "You wouldn't understand."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
He shrugs dejectedly. "You just wouldn't."  
  
"I may be a mere twenty-four, but let me tell you--"  
  
He looks up at that, surprised. "You're only twenty-four?"  
  
I feel oddly pleased. "Yes. How old did you think I was?" It's not a double-edged question, or a catch-22. I'd like to know.  
  
"Twenty-six?" he says after a second of thought.  
  
"Cool."  
  
"You won't say that when you're twenty-six." His voice is dark, ominous. Bordering on New England Vincent Price, actually.  
  
"Why not?"  
  
A heavy sigh. "You wouldn't understand."  
  
For Pete's sake. If he wanted to talk to someone about feeling old..."Look, Sam, I'm twenty-four years old, yes. I'm not "old." Why don't you go talk to Josh or Toby about feeling old, if I'm not old enough?"  
  
He slouches farther into the chair and shakes his head. "Toby's mad at me."  
  
The words that spring immediately to mind are: I am supposed to be working, sir. Aren't you? "Why?"  
  
He shrugs again.  
  
"Don't you have something to do? I mean, I'm busy, so you're probably twice as busy."  
  
He mutters something. "What?"  
  
"Toby kicked me out."  
  
My turn to sigh. "Why?"  
  
"I'm blocked."  
  
Well, that explains everything. "You're blocked."  
  
He shoots me a little glare, then returns to staring at my mother's back. "You don't have to shout it so the whole place can hear."  
  
"The door is shut, Sam, and I didn't shout. What were you working on with Toby?" Surreptitiously, I turn my monitor off so I'm not distracted by, heaven forbid, my job.  
  
"A thing."  
  
If this were a normal evening and he was anybody else, by now I would have boxed his ears and thrown him out. But it's not a normal evening--if it were, I wouldn't be here. And it is Sam. So I put on my dusty pseudo-den-mother hat. It's got a lovely ostrich feather on it. "What sort of thing?"  
  
"A thing, you know. Where the President tells everyone he's running again. But officially, this time."  
  
"Oh. That's pretty important, isn't it?"  
  
His eyes meet mine again, and I see pain. He doesn't deserve my patronization. "Of course it's important, Sam. I'm sorry." Shifting in my seat, my foot hits my backpack, which has a very special treat in it. I was going to eat it on the way home, but you know. With a little smile, I reach down and pull out a Tupperware container. "Do you want some loaf?"  
  
"What?"  
  
I pop the lid off and break a corner off the top piece. The dark, chocolate-coloured loaf is sliced thick, with pecans on the top. I offer the bit to him across the desk. "It's writer's block loaf. Have some."  
  
He hesitates, takes it. After sniffing it, he puts the whole bite in his mouth. "Mmph mph?"  
  
I giggle as he realizes he underestimated the fudginess of the loaf and it sticks to his teeth. "Writer's block loaf."  
  
It takes him a while to chew and swallow the piece, but he's eventually successful. "Writer's block loaf?"  
  
"Yep. I got the recipe off the internet."  
  
"It tastes kind of funny," he says, running his tongue over his teeth.  
  
"Carew."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Carew. It's not chocolate, it's carew. It tastes different."  
  
"Vegan."  
  
"Actually, chocolate itself doesn't have any dairy products in it. It's a bean. So vegans can eat chocolate. Not milk chocolate, though. The practise of adding milk to chocolate began as a cheap way to make more chocolate and thereby fulfill a growing demand. I prefer dark chocolate, myself. No milk."  
  
"Oh." He brushes some crumbs off his rumpled shirt, then pauses and looks at me strangely. "There's nothing, you know...in it, right?"  
  
Nothing like what? "There's pecans in it...you're not allergic, are you?"  
  
Shaking his head, he elaborates. "No, I mean...in it."  
  
"Well, it has mass, therefore density...of course there's stuff in it, silly." What is he talking about?  
  
"Of course. I know. I mean, like, illegal stuff."  
  
Oh my God. I don't know quite how to take that. Suggesting I would..."I may be young, but I don't put drugs in my baking, Sam," I reply icily.  
  
"Yeah, okay. Sorry. Can I have another piece?"  
  
I take the rest of the top slice for myself and slide the container over to him. "So, you like?"  
  
"Yes, I do."  
  
"Still blocked?"  
  
"This is supposed to what, vanquish writer's block?" He raises his eyebrows, popping a little chunk in his mouth.  
  
With a laugh, I reply, "No, no. I think you're supposed to get rid of writer's block by making it, but I can't really bake here, so I made it ahead. Good to eat, though."  
  
He's about to say something when a strange look comes onto his face and he stands and leaves.  
  
He *is* allergic to pecans. Dammit. Or carew. Or...what if I've killed him? Oh dear. I killed my boss. Sam! I killed Sam. With a loaf. I know I'm not the best cook in the world, but I didn't mean to kill him.  
  
I'm about to jump up and go after him when he comes back in with a carton of milk. "From the kitchenette," he explains, putting it on the desk between us. At my look of confusion, he adds, "Can't have brownies without milk."  
  
"It's a loaf."  
  
"It tastes like brownies."  
  
"I thought I killed you or something. Geez."  
  
He takes off his glasses and laughs at me. "Killed me?"  
  
With a wave of my hand, I dismiss the notion. "Never mind. Still blocked?"  
  
He rubs the right lens of his glasses with his shirt, refusing to meet my eyes. "What are you working on?"  
  
Trying to tactfully get rid of you so I can go back to work. Damn my compassion. "A thing."  
  
"Very funny."  
  
"Well, it is a thing," I reply defensively.  
  
"What sort of thing?"  
  
"A press release sort of thing."  
  
"About a certain Senator?"  
  
Forget my compassion. Damn his memory for remembering things that I don't want him to remember. "Yes."  
  
He licks a finger and rubs it on a smudge. "How did it go this morning?"  
  
"Um, good." I will say only the bare facts. There's nothing he needs to know. Nothing he should know.  
  
"What did he have to say for himself?"  
  
I clear my throat, struggling for the right words. "He's made up his mind, basically, and he's going to leave the party."  
  
"Is he remaining as an independent?"  
  
"Until the next election. Then he'll run for the GOP." That's what my father always called it, the GOP. Grand Old Pricks. Or Grand Ornery Pack mules. I must say he had a sterling sense of humour, for all his faults. There was also one about geezers and Pampers, but I can't remember it.  
  
"That's such a misnomer. GOP. If I weren't blocked, I would think up a witty...thing. What the letters stand for. A witty one." He raises his eyebrows to emphasise his point and takes another bite of loaf.  
  
I now believe in clones. Really. Too bad he's only got, like, a foot on me. I probably outweigh him, too. And I have better taste in clothes. "Hmm."  
  
"Am I boring you?"  
  
Oh, yes. Definitely. It's so boring to sit and converse tensely with someone who's tense for a totally different reason and, besides being unaware of your tenseness, wants you to make them untense. "No."  
  
He crosses his legs and leans back in the plastic chair. "Good."  
  
So now we're sitting. Silent. I link my fingers and look everywhere but at his face as he watches me through slightly less-smudged glasses. I want to...I don't know. Clean them or something. I'm so very very stupid.  
  
Suddenly, he reaches out. I think for a second his arm is going to lengthen drastically and he will touch me. But his hand moves over and grabs the framed photo. "Do you mind?" he asks.  
  
"Mind what?" My throat is dry. I pick up the carton of milk and open it, intending, somewhere in the back of my mind, to take a drink. "Oh, no, go ahead."  
  
Why did he ask when he already had the photo? Silly.  
  
"Your mother?"  
  
I've tilted the carton to my mouth when he asks, and I choke on the milk as I try to answer automatically. "Are you okay?  
  
"Yeah," I reply raspily, still barking out little coughs. "It's my mother." At least I didn't spill any.  
  
He looks down at the picture. She is standing in the sunlight, wearing khaki shorts and a yellow blouse. Her hand is shading her eyes as she laughs into the camera. A couple of camels mingle in the background. "Where is she?"  
  
"Egypt, I think. Or the Gobi. She likes deserts."  
  
"Where is she now?"  
  
I think for a second, wonder if her plane left last night or tonight. "A suite in Beijing. Or at her house in Baltimore."  
  
"You're not close," he states, as if it were a fact.  
  
"No, no, we're very close. It's just...I've been, um, distracted lately, and I can't remember when her flight was scheduled. She travels a lot." I don't quite remember when this conversation got personal, but I wish it hadn't. I was more comfortable talking about Senator Marles. A little bit, at least.  
  
He nods and puts the photo back on my desk. "You don't look much like her."  
  
No. My mother is tall, willowy, graceful, blonde, sweet-mouthed, gorgeous. Kind, sophisticated, wealthy, and...a million other things I've come to accept I am not and will never be. I don't really have much choice, if I want to have some relatives. I'm an only child, and there's my father. That's all there is to say. "Her eyes."  
  
A smile cracks his face. "Yeah."  
  
Oh, why won't he go away? "Still blocked?" I ask cheerfully, picking up my container and putting my uneaten slice of loaf in it.  
  
"Tell me what Marles said." He says it almost beseechingly, like he's asking for a bedtime story.  
  
Or I need to get my hearing checked. Either way. One of us is crazy.  
  
"There's not much else, actually," I reply in a business-like tone, switching my monitor on and slipping the container into my backpack.  
  
"Come on, Annie. Talk to me. Why did he wait?"  
  
My eyes are glued to the screen, to the 150-word release I'm writing for tomorrow morning's briefing. Neither CJ nor the press will pay any attention to it anyway, so it doesn't really matter how long or detailed it is. It doesn't really matter if Sam knows what he said.  
  
"Senator Marles said...he said that he was very lucky this had happened so soon before the story about his voting broke. He said he was lucky. I guess he is." Don't ask if there's any more, Sam. Please. Don't ask if there was laughter in his voice when he said he was lucky. Don't ask if he.... Just don't ask.  
  
He rests his feet on the floor and stands. He is leaving. Shut up and go, for pity's sake.  
  
"Anything else I need to know?"  
  
Nothing else is going right lately, why should he comply with one psychic request?  
  
But.  
  
What does he need to know? What can I get away with not telling him? Where's the harm in keeping one piece of information? It's not important. It doesn't affect the rest of it. It doesn't matter.  
  
"Annie?"  
  
His eyes are so clear. He's so readable. So transparent. I imagine all these secrets and lies and intrigue must be what's making him feel old. He thinks I wouldn't understand because I'm a kid. He thinks I'm idealistic. He thinks I'm so many things I'm not anymore. I feel a hundred.  
  
"Are you okay, Annie?"  
  
I shake my head, as if coming out of a daze. "Yeah, yeah. I'm fine."  
  
"All right, then. Good night, Annie. Thanks for the loaf. I think I can face Toby now. Baffle him with my knowledge of the history of chocolate."  
  
"You're welcome. Good night."  
  
The door opens. I can't meet my mother's eyes. He pauses.  
  
"Nothing else?"  
  
Oh, God. I'm sorry, Sam.  
  
"No."  
  
The door closes softly.  
  
The End.  



End file.
